It began at a sports bar, the kind of place the realtor would call "happy-go-lucky." In other words, if your barstool wasn't sticky, assume it had just been swabbed clean by CSI. There was graffiti on ... [+]
Berkeley writer, Simone Martel, is the author of a novel, A Cat Came Back, a memoir, The Expectant Gardener, and a story collection, Exile’s Garden. Her story, "Laura's Reflection," is in Short Circuit #04, Short Édition's quarterly review.
Laura balanced on a stool beneath the skylight, the sun's warm pressure on her back. "Am I okay?" she asked her father. "You'll do." He winked at her over the easel.Downstairs, the front door banged."Kathie," Laura said."Mmm," her father agreed, tracing the curve of Laura's cheek with his eyes, lingering on her chin, moving up to her mouth. "The check's on the coffee table.""Don't you want to come down?" Laura asked."Kathie knows where to find me."Below them, footsteps tramped closer. Laura slid off her stool and hurried out of the sunny studio, through the attic's greenish, underwater darknes